Westerners first broke trust. Some of Western leaders literally promised not to move NATO to the East in the beginning of 1990s.
Bruh, at this point you can't even seriously be bringing this stuff up
. There was never a single signed deal for NATO not to accept new members who wished to be accepted. There was like one or two random ambassadors who pretty much just said "well, yeah, sure," after being pressed on this by Russian officials, and ever since it became obvious that those random nobodies' words on this matter meant nothing Russians have been crying about "muh treacherous NATO
."
And NATO showed that myth about 'defensive' alliance is a myth when they intervened in Bosnia.
How can you be 'defensive' if you attack someone who didn't even possessed any danger to any NATO country?
Why didn't Russia and China block the UN resolutions on enforcement of a no-fly space over Bosnia then? Russia voted for both, China abstained twice. NATO started enforcing them, Serbs attacked NATO planes, NATO responded by making sure that the Serbs' ability to attack their planes would be as small as possible by bombing them. The resolutions were fully supported by the entire UN Security Council, including the veto power-wielding permanent members Russia and China, whether by direct vote or by absention, and when NATO's ability to enforce this UN-supported no-fly zone was threatened, it retaliated. Simple.
en.wikipedia.org
14 voted for None voted against 1 abstained
en.wikipedia.org
14 voted for None voted against 1 abstained
en.wikipedia.org
Female-level solipsism. Maybe question why would any country want to have a biggest military alliance on its borders when thinking about Russian actions?
That ship has sailed a long time ago. The Baltics were right by St. Petersburg the last time I checked. So is Finland now. Meanwhile, I don't think Russians have so much as moved more troops there, and have in fact moved troops once stationed there to take part in the Ukraine war.
They know that there's absolutely no chance of NATO attacking them. Even Putin himself laughed at Tucker Carlson when he talked about NATO possibly attacking Russia
. Hell, you yourself have just admitted that:
West also invaded Russia in 1612, 1812 and 1941 and would have done again if not for nukes.
Yes
. There it is. As long as Russia has nukes, nothing would ever happen. That's why nobody in the Russian government gives a shit about the fact that their second biggest city could get besieged in a day if a war with NATO broke out, because they know that there will
never be a war with NATO, because NATO would never willingly get destroyed by a nuclear great power for no reason.
Also how Russia never invaded Azerbaijan or Armenia and they are not in NATO?
Armenia was a Russian ally in CSTO, while Azerbaijan is pretty clearly allied with Turkey and fighting Muslim countries could backfire for Russia if it proved too unpopular with the Muslim populations in the Caucasus.
And yet, most of those countries are still whiter than any region of Russia and have higher fertility rates to boot
.
DRC and the other Congo are also major resource exporters, does that mean other countries should willingly become their vassals
?
Because you don't fuck with the better half of the world being only 1.5% of the global economy, as simple as that. But russia and russians could first built a society someone wishes to live in and belong to, maybe that would help.
These pictures don't address the point i'm making. Russia talks big and calls itself a standalone civilization, but has got nothing to back up its claims. China is not russia, and Jfl at thinking China will fight russian cause. It has its own agenda.
Always love it when someone else appears and says in a few simple sentences what my rambling brain would struggle with getting out.
The absolute number one problem with Russia's fantasies of turning the clock back and reverting the geopolitical situation in Europe to what it was in the 50s and 60s, is that it's utterly impossible at this point. The only reason Russia had conquered and controlled so much territory in Europe, which it did for the first time in history, was because of literally the greatest war in human history taking out every European rival it had. Those countries were utterly devastated, plus, the USSR was much more powerful in comparison to the Eastern Bloc countries under it than Russia is in comparison to CEE today.
USSR's 200+ million or so population was about three times higher than those of the war-devastated countries they took over. Now, the entirety of CEE minus Russia has about the same population as it, maybe a bit less, and it definitely has a bigger and more advanced collective economy than Russia. Russia simply can't project power over those countries anymore, because it simply doesn't have the power to easily dominate them anymore, and no amount of we wuzzing and seething about NATO can change this fact. The
only thing Russia has over CEE countries are nukes, which is why they bring them up so much. Everyone knows they aren't going to do shit since those countries are in NATO, and when (and at this point, it definitely is a when and not an if) Poland or maybe some other country here gets nukes, even that larp will stop.
I also love how none of the people who love to talk about how China's rise is an inevitable reversion to the mean (which I freely admit I agree with) and to how it was for most of history don't apply the same to Russia. Russia's domination over EE, as I just talked about, is very much a historical abberation. For most of history, Russia was overall
maybe a bit stronger than Poland, but nowhere near to genuinely threaten it, nevermind hoping to dominate the regions the USSR did. Russia's falling out with Europe and having no power over CEE is very much a "reversion to the mean". Russia had hit a high point after the partitions of Poland, peaked during the Cold War, and now it's reverting back to what it was for most of history. Overall the strongest country in Europe all things considered, but not an overwhelming hegemon, not in the slightest.
The bottom line is, if Russia wants the rest of CEE to follow it and ally themselves with it, it need to actually have something to offer. Russia's industrial output is similar to V4's collective one, which is on about Mexico's level, its export/trade profile is pure third world resource exploitation and importation of advanced technology from abroad, it's ridiculously lagging in automation/robotization and that's not even talking about AI. Even the GCC countries are moving away from oil and desperately trying to diversify their economies and move up the value chain, I have no idea why Russia isn't investing just as much money into that as well. If they did so, I can definitely see the other countries in the region following it.